children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting.” With hearts bleeding at the sacrifice which we were called to make, we clung to the precious and appropriate promise of our divine Master, committed our little ones to his care, and went forth to fulfill his commission to the best of our ability.
With my wife and two younger children I sailed from Boston on the 9th of April, 1856. I was instructed to proceed by way of England, and there obtain from the secretaries of the different missionary societies all the information available in regard to those unoccupied portions of India where we might labor without interference with existing missions, “to preach the Gospel, not where Christ is named, lest we should build upon another man's foundation,” and there labor for the enlargement of the kingdom of God.
Having attended to this duty, and obtained all the light that the secretaries and returned missionaries could impart, I resolved to proceed to Calcutta, and from that to move westward into the heart of the country and examine the Valley of the Ganges. We left Southampton on the 20th of August in the steamship Pera. Just as we were departing, the consort ship of the same line, the Ripon, came in with the mails and passengers from India, and on board of her was the Queen of Oude, coming to place before the British Queen her protest against the annexation of Oude, and to plead for the restoration of the sovereignty to her family.
Apart from the singularity of the fact that she was probably the first lady of her race who had ever come to a western clime, her presence there occasioned me no particular interest; yet, as God looked down upon the objects of each, how much she and I, thus meeting casually for a moment, really depended upon each other's movements! Had she succeeded in her mission, I must necessarily have failed in mine, so far as our present mission field is concerned, for I was unconsciously going to the kingdom which she had ruled, and to the very capital whose gates she had left ajar
